The First Scratch

The first scratching took place on a Saturday in Camden Town, on the roof terrace of a cocktail bar. I was playing chess with the lovely Camille, a hairdresser working in Mayfair and originally from France. Camille has a soft French accent, and is partial to a few afternoon drinks along with a few rollies (Golden Virginia tobacco, silver papers and menthol filters). We were drinking mojitos, it was 4pm and the sun was just breaking out of the slightly overcast English sky. The conditions were perfect.
 

In my wallet I had it stored – the bright yellow £1 National Lottery scratch card with a top prize of £100,000. I had purchased said scratch card a few days previously from a newsagent in Soho, and was waiting for my first victim/potential winner. About half way through our third drink I posed the suggestion – “Camille, have you ever played a scratch card before?”. She innocently looked up from her chess move (my bishop was eyeing up her Queen), and looked vaguely interested but also slightly confused. I simply took out my wallet and threw the yellow card of potential fortune down in front of her.

“How do I play?” she asked. Immediately it indicated her naivety to scratch cards in general, and I was pleased that my first scratcher was also a first scratcher herself. I explained the rules (just match 3 amounts to win that amount), she laughed and took a coin from her wallet. “Ok, sounds easy!”.

She was a ‘take it all off in one go’ type girl and after about 6 seconds the grey latex covering had been completely removed by her 1p coin. Staring back at us where nine numbers. This one was a close one, a teaser – there were two fifties, and two one hundred thousands. But alas, there was not three matching numbers and as such, Camille was not a winner.

We continued on with our chess (she beat me three times in a row) and continued on with the cocktails. It was a great afternoon, but no winnings to be had this time.